MRS. LESLIE WON TO THE CAUSE
“No doubt I deserve it,” said Josie solemnly.
“Even if you do I cannot bear to think of your being there and,
although it is not quite honorable of me to do so, I am going to assist
you to run away. Honor isn’t everything. A woman must be human first
and a human being could not stand by and see a poor young thing like
you branded as a criminal with a terrible jail sentence staring you in
the face.”
“But, my dear lady, I have not confessed to being a real criminal--only
not quite honest in that--”
“But there is no line to draw where honesty is concerned. That is what
you shall have to learn. One is either honest or dishonest--but you are
so young--”
“But, Mrs. Leslie, what do you and Mary think I have done?”
“Not me!” cried Mary. “I am sure of you, Josie. I simply _know_ you
have done nothing wrong.”
“Thank you, Mary! Then what does your mother think I have done?”
“Think--why, you poor dear child, I know you are a thief--at least a
shoplifter,” blurted out Mrs. Leslie. “Major Simpson has been keeping
his eye on you for weeks and weeks and he has at last rounded you up.
Oh, why do we stand here and talk? You must be leaving before he gets
here. I have telephoned him that you have come back.”
“Ah--then I am the watermelons,” laughed Josie.
“Yes, I meant lemons but I got so mixed because I was excited. I knew
it was something people take to picnics and watermelons are good to
take although they are only the shipped Georgia melons we get for the
Fourth of July. All the time it was lemonade I was thinking about.
Anyhow watermelons was nearer to it than sandwiches would have been. I
know you think I am crazy but I’m not.”
“No, I know very well you are exceedingly sane,” said Josie gently.
“You are simply overwrought and are thinking aloud. But now tell me
what it is. You mean you have telephoned Major Simpson that I have come
back and he will be along soon with the handcuffs?”
“Oh-h-h! Not that!”
“Perhaps not,” smiled Josie, “but I think you had better let me make a
clean breast of the whole affair and then we will decide what is to be
done. In the first place, I am not a shop girl at all--”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Mrs. Leslie said to Mary.
“Please don’t interrupt, Mother,” begged Mary.
“But I am a detective brought here from Dorfield by Burnett & Burnett
to find out who has been shoplifting so successfully,” Josie continued.
“Another detective!” gasped Mrs. Leslie.
“Yes, although I must say that poor old Major Simpson hardly deserves
to be called one. I have thought it best not to tell anyone what
brought me to Wakely since both Mr. Charles and Mr. Theodore Burnett
were opposed to letting Major Simpson know they had employed someone
over his head, as it were. It seems he has never yet detected a thing
about anybody, and while they do not want to hurt his feelings they
are determined to track the thieves if possible. I was recommended to
the firm as a capable person and was employed by them. We felt I could
accomplish more if I had a job in the store and that is how I came to
tell you that I was a shop girl. I have never liked having to conceal
my real profession from you and Mary but it had to be done. Major
Simpson from the first seemed to have a peculiar interest in me and
I thought it was because he had heard of my father. Perhaps you have
never heard of him, but he was one of the greatest and cleverest of
detectives.”
“Not Detective O’Gorman?” cried Mrs. Leslie. “Not the man who found
Margaret Carson, the millionaire baby! Not the one who tracked down the
famous counterfeiters at Dempsey’s Mill by hiding in a meal sack for a
whole day and night! Not the one who proved the old maid sister had put
rat poison in the chicken salad at the wedding just to get even with
the young man who was marrying her sister all because one time he had
shot her cat for stealing chickens! Oh, Josie, to think of my having
you right here under my--my ceiling for all these weeks and not knowing
you were Detective O’Gorman’s daughter. Why, my husband and I never
missed a thing he did in the way of detecting crime and we followed
every inch of his work if we could just get hold of it. Of course I
knew he lived in Washington and if you had ever mentioned Washington I
might have guessed, but you see, you never did.”
“No, I never did,” said Josie, whose eyes were full of tears. How often
she had mentioned her father, expecting him to be known and remembered,
and how often she had been mortified at the ignorance of other persons.
Now, here was this quiet country woman who had not even known how to
punch on an electric light until she came to Wakely to live, yet she
knew all about the great O’Gorman and gave him all honor and praise.
“Go on, Josie! I did not mean to interrupt, but I just had to. I wish
my dear husband could have met you. He was the one that got me so
interested in detective tales. But go on!”
“I believe I left off where I realized Major Simpson took an interest
in me. This interest manifested itself in a peculiar way but I did not
realize until this afternoon what the poor old man thought. I was so
sure he was trying to find out O’Gorman methods of detecting that I
went blindly on my way. The fact is, I teased the old fellow. He used
to follow me around the street and I’d keep him guessing and then lose
him. It is a very easy thing to do.”
“The Sylvester Simpsons are very good people,” murmured Mrs. Leslie,
but Mary gave her a beseeching glance and she desisted from further
interruptions.
“I have been walking the streets of Wakely a great deal because I
have been determined to find out where the many employees of Burnett
& Burnett’s live, as well as something about their habits. You see,
Mr. Charles Burnett had a suspicion that the shoplifting was done from
the inside. So while Major Simpson was under the impression that I was
playing hide and seek with him I have really been on my job, which did
not stop with closing time at the store. This afternoon I went out to
Linden Heights to track down a young person and found she has given a
fictitious address.”
“Oh, how exciting!” exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. “Why do you suppose--?”
“I don’t know but I am going to find out. A whole lot of things have
happened this afternoon that I have to find out about. In the first
place, there was a theft of some priceless lace and a mesh bag--”
“Oh--h! I forgot that!” cried Mrs. Leslie. “And what were you doing
with those things? That is what has been worrying me sick.”
“I told you I did not know when you asked me before, and I told you the
truth. Since then a gleam of light has been shed on how I got those
things but it is such a faint gleam that I feel it best not to say
anything more about it until I can see more clearly myself. I am going
to ask you and Mary to trust me a little longer in so far as the lace
and gold bag being found in my pocket is concerned.”
“Indeed I have always trusted you, Josie,” declared Mary.
“Well I must say I haven’t,” said Mrs. Leslie, stoutly, “and I’d like
to know now where those things are. Major Simpson will be coming along
here before you know it and I am not willing for him to find them in my
apartment. Where are they, Josie?”
“They are where they belong--with Mr. Theodore Burnett. I took them
to him the moment I was aware of the fact that they were in my
possession.”
“Mr. Theodore Burnett! Then was he the man who came home with you, the
one who stopped three doors up?”
“Yes, that was Mr. Theodore Burnett, the junior member of the firm.”
“Heavens above! And I took him to be one of your confederates!”
“So he is, and we happen to be working on an inside job. It was never
my idea to be so secretive about my being a detective, at least so far
as Major Simpson was concerned, but the Burnetts were sure he would not
know how to cooperate with me and that if a clue was found he would
bungle because he is so--so--I might say, old fashioned, though that is
hardly the word because the business of detecting crime is as old as
crime itself, and what new wrinkles have been discovered do not amount
to a row of pins.”
“There now, it was that kind of talk that made me say you were not
a notion counter girl,” said Mrs. Leslie. “But you will tell Major
Simpson now, surely.”
“No, not yet! I am afraid he would bungle things. Mr. Burnett and I
have decided to keep him in the dark as to my business until the real
thieves are caught.”
“Of course if you catch the shoplifters you want the glory of it and
if you took him in on it he might get half,” said Mrs. Leslie. “That’s
human nature.”
“I don’t care a snap for the glory,” laughed Josie. “It may be human
nature, but it is not mine and it was not my father’s. I know you think
this will sound smug, but honestly and truly the doing of the work is
what interests me and anybody who wants to can walk off with the laurel
wreath. Of course the laborer is worthy of his hire and I want the
hard cash for delivering the goods. Not that I do the work for money
either--that is, I don’t think about the money and of it while I am
doing it. After it is all over it is rather pleasant to deposit a fat
check in the bank.”
“Yes, I reckon it is, and it takes money to dress as you do,” said Mrs.
Leslie.
“As I do?” laughed Josie. “Why, Mrs. Leslie, I don’t believe there is a
girl at Burnett & Burnett’s so simply dressed as I am.”
“Simply but elegantly!” insisted Mrs. Leslie. “I know dress goods when
I see it--and shoes--there is nothing simple about your shoes.”
“Well, you are right, my dear lady. I do get good material for my
frocks and I do wear good shoes. By the way, what did Major Simpson
think of my shoes?”
“Your shoes!” and Mrs. Leslie blushed furiously. “What do you mean,
Josie? But I’m not going to lie about it. The Major did go in your
room, but he made me feel it was in the cause of the upholding of the
law that I should take him there. He did not meddle with anything
however--except--”
“Except my little book in the top drawer,” teased Josie.
“Yes--” faltered the much embarrassed hostess, “but how did you know
that?”
“I knew it in the first place because the book was not quite in the
corner and the back turned in instead of out. But if I had not known it
already this would have been proof that someone had been in my drawer.”
Josie produced the broken cuff link.
“Oh, my dear, I am so mortified that I let that bigoted old man make
such a fool of me,” wailed Mrs. Leslie. “He doesn’t know the first
thing about the detective business, either. And I thought he was so
clever. You see he is the first one I ever knew and he talked so
knowingly. The idea of his leaving a cuff link in the drawer! And to
think of his spending all this time tracking down a detective! Anybody
could see with half an eye that you are as honest as the day is long.
Josie, I am going to do anything you tell me to keep your identity
concealed from old Major Simpson. I don’t care if he does belong to one
of the most respectable families in our county, with his ancestral home
right next to mine--and I don’t care if he did give me a pink parasol
when I was a little girl. He is a poor detective and that is what I am
interested in.”
“That’s the way to talk,” said Josie, and the girls laughed so merrily
that Mrs. Leslie joined in. “But what line of subterfuge are we to
decide on? It is really very important to keep the poor man fooled for
a few days yet.”
“I’ll phone him again and tell him the watermelons are to be with me
for some time--I mean lemons--and he need have no fear of losing them.”